Awards issued prior to january 20, 2025, were funded under previous administrations and may not reflect the priorities and policies of the current administration.** building code officials and fire…

Awards issued prior to january 20, 2025, were funded under previous administrations and may not reflect the priorities and policies of the current administration.** building code officials and fire marshals often present concerns related to combustible construction that become barriers to the use of mass timber in their jurisdictions. Due to the lack of data on the decay phase and post-fire performance of mass timber structures, building code officials are hesitant to allow for the construction of mass timber buildings in cities throughout the US. This project focuses on the mass timber building performance in the decay phase of a fire, the post-fire behavior of mass timber buildings, and the emissions of mass timber buildings during a fire. These efforts are aimed at developing solutions for fire fighter safety in mass timber buildings and providing the first data related to carbon emissions for a structure. The results from this research will provide critical data for the development of engineered solutions for fire safe mass timber buildings (including firefighting) and the necessary input data to for carbon emission models and life cycle analysis. These solutions will alleviate technical and market barriers of using mass timber throughout the US and further the progression of building codes that permit the use of mass timber in high-rise building construction.alleviating these technical barriers will benefit the economy in states and rural regions of the country where timber production is still the main economic driver thereby promoting the use of this natural resource. Specifically, this integrated project application addresses the nifa afri priority areas of: bioenergy, natural resources, and environment and agriculture economics and rural communities.